Dan Schulman: Working Together to End Youth Homelessness

written by naehblog

November 19, 2009

In recognition of Homeless Youth Awareness Month and the work of Virgin Mobile USA – the Alliance’s 2010 recipient of the Private Sector Achievement Award – a few words from Dan Schulman, CEO of Virgin Mobile USA.

Virgin Mobile has been a consistent voice in raising awareness of this issue by fundraising and implementing easy ways for the public to engage and show support since the launch of The Re*Generation. In June 2007, we worked with legislators from both the House and Senate to have Congress officially declare November as National Homeless Youth Awareness Month with the support of singer-songwriter and former homeless youth, Jewel.

Over the past three years, Virgin Mobile has continued to expand its efforts in this area and, in light of the current economic situation in the U.S., we decided to make our annual Virgin Mobile Festival free this past summer. The energy surrounding FreeFest was inspiring and we expanded on this positive energy by announcing the Free I.P. program in which we asked people to volunteer in order to upgrade their FreeFest ticket to a V.I.P. ticket. Through this program, more than 30,000 hours of community service were donated by volunteers throughout the country, more than $80,000 was raised, 1,000 pairs of sneakers were donated, and 7,000 hygiene kits were produced for distribution to homeless youth organizations. The Free I.P. program was an acclaimed success and we hope to continue this program at future festivals and other events.

We have also provided the public with simple and direct ways to get involved in the movement to help homeless youth with our short code mobile campaigns Txt2Clothe and Txt2Donate. More than 200,000 items of clothing have been made available to homeless youth through our Txt2Clothe initiative and $35,000 through our Txt2Donate program. To date, Virgin Mobile has committed more than $3,000,000 of marketing and direct investment support to our charitable partners including $180,000 from Virgin Mobile Festival ticket sales.

To celebrate the three-year anniversary of National Homeless Youth Awareness Month, we hosted a special concert by Public Enemy on November 18th at George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium with all ticket proceeds benefiting Sasha Bruce House, a non-profit shelter for homeless youth in Washington, D.C. Working in conjunction with the “One Warm Coat” initiative, led by Serve DC– The Mayor’s Office on Volunteerism, fans were encouraged to bring new or gently used coats to receive V.I.P. seat upgrades the night of the show. All coats collected were provided to the Sasha Bruce House.

We are very grateful to the Alliance for recognizing the work of Virgin Mobile, our dedicated staff and partners, and everyone who has helped to raise awareness for this issue along the way. This has been an incredible journey and one that still has many steps to accomplish. Virgin Mobile and Virgin Unite are passionate about moving closer toward the goal of ending youth homelessness in the United States. Our thanks go out to the Alliance for all you do and for your generous recognition of our work.